Whew! I apologize for disappearing for so long. A family member has been ill for several months, and I haven’t had time to post. Things haven’t really calmed down, but I’m going to try to get back in the groove of writing more regularly so, here goes: Let’s talk about new plants for 2015. Or more specifically, new plants that can survive Minnesota’s horrifyingly cold, Zone 4 climate. For those of you who live where it’s even colder, I’ve got a few plants that are hardy to Zones 2 and 3. If you live in much warmer climates, you have the opposite problem. So you’ll want to check to see hot much heat the plants I’m talking about can take before you buy them.

USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map

You’re probably familiar with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Plant Hardiness Zones, which indicate the minimum temperatures in 11 areas across the country. By checking the USDA’s map, you can see whether a plant you’re considering can take your area’s minimum temperature. For example, in Zone 4b where I live, plants need to be hardy to at least -25° F to make it.

It’s always hard to choose just a few plants to highlight from the long list of new introductions each year. But here are some of my favorites. Before I go on, though, I want to remind you that if you are concerned about the effect of neonicotinoid pesticides on bees, you’ll need to check with sellers before you buy plants. Some retailers have stopped selling plants treated with “neonics” in response to studies suggesting that the pesticides harm bees, particularly honeybees. But this issue is still being sorted out and not everyone is on board. I’ll write more about what’s happening with neonics very soon, so without further ado, here are the plants.

Tiger Stripes Solomon’s seal

Got shade? Try adding some Solomon’s seal ‘Tiger Stripes’ (Polygonatum falcatum) from Plant Delights Nursery to your garden. This variegated selection has pretty cream-colored highlights and grows to about 18 inches tall. Fruit clusters appear in the fall and plants are hardy to Zone 4. Plant Delights is located in Raleigh, N.C., and is known for offering unique plants that are hard to find elsewhere. Orders can be placed on their website.

Cobra lily Saturnus – High Country Gardens

I’ve never tried growing cobra lily (Chasmanthe Saturnus) but I’m going to try now. This South African native bulb offered by High Country Gardens blooms in mid-summer and is hardy to Zone 2. Spikes of fragrant, tubular orange flowers attract hummingbirds. Plants grow to between 3 and 4 feet tall and 2 feet wide and need full sun, which is 6 hours or more.

‘Hatatogisa’ toad lily – Creek Hill Nursery

Toad lilies are great for our northern gardens because they bloom late in the season and look so tropical. Tricyrtis ‘Hatatogisa’ from Creek Hill Nursery is a lovely Japanese toad lily with orchid-like, purple-spotted flowers on long, arching stems. This plant is not really new, but it is being freshly promoted. Plants grow 18 to 24 inches tall and 12 inches wide and prefer part shade to full shade. Zone 4.

Above and Beyond™ rose – Bailey Nurseries

Looking for a tough, no-fuss rose that’s like no other? Head out to local garden centers and ask for Above and Beyond™ (Rosa ‘ZLEEltonStrack’), the newest rose from local breeder David Zlesak. David gave me this rose to test in my garden a couple of years ago, so I can attest to its hardiness and beauty. Introduced by Bailey Nurseries, Above and Beyond has apricot-colored flowers that open in mid- to late-spring and often rebloom throughout the season. Plants grow 10 to 14 feet tall and about 14 feet wide, which sounds ginormous, but you can easily prune them to be shrubs or climbers. I’ve got mine growing on a south-facing fence. Full sun. Zone 3.

Serious Black clematis – Walters Gardens

I know they aren’t everyone’s cup of tea, but I like black plants. So I can’t resist suggesting Clematis recta ‘Lime Close’, also known as Serious Black™, a nod to Harry Potter fans everywhere. Unlike vining clematis, this new introduction from Walters Gardens offers dark-purple foliage that looks almost black and grows in clumps to about 6 feet tall. Foliage ages to green as the summer progresses and is topped with white flowers with slender petals. (Plan on supporting plants if they get too tall and floppy.) Walters doesn’t sell to the public, but you should be able to find this plant at garden centers. Full sun. Zone 4a.

Pink Truffles baptisia

If you like baptisia but wish plants wouldn’t flop over after they bloom in early summer, try Baptisia ‘Pink Truffles’ from Walters Gardens. One of several new varieties bred by Hans Hansen, this false indigo is compact at just 2 ½ feet tall and 3 feet wide and offers delicate, pink flowers. Plants are drought tolerant once they are established and should be grown in full sun to part shade. Zone 4.

Twilight Zone little bluestem – Walters Gardens

And last but certainly not least, let me point out a really striking grass from Walters Gardens. (Again, this should be available at local garden centers.) Schizachyrium scoparium ‘Twilight Zone’ is a little bluestem that is now widely available after a limited release last year. In addition to its columnar form, this ornamental grass offers silver/purple highlights. Grows to 4 feet tall and 2 feet wide. Full sun. Zone 3.

Most of these plants should be available at garden centers this season, but in some cases you can order directly from the website I’ve provided.

Here’s a good piece of gardening advice. If someone says that they have a ginormous amount of a certain plant and they want to give you some, RUN AWAY.

Yes, creeping bellflower is pretty. But it will also take over your garden.

With few exceptions, if a plant has taken over that person’s garden, it will take over yours too because it is evil—or invasive—whatever you want to call it. It doesn’t care. In fact, it may employ trickery to try to get you to take it home and plant it.

That’s definitely the case with creeping bellflower (Campanula rapunculoides). Even if you don’t know the name, you’ve probably noticed this horrible-to-the-core plant because it’s tall and showy with pretty purple bell-shaped flowers. It’s also everywhere that it can possibly get a foothold, especially this year because the plant likes moist soil and we’ve had so much rain.

Native to Europe, creeping bellflower was actually introduced to North America as a lovely new ornamental (I’m not sure when) and it quickly became popular with unsuspecting gardeners. In fact, I frequently see this plant on tables at plant sales or potted up and sitting on the sidewalk outside of people’s houses with a “Free” sign on it. (To be fair, it isn’t invasive everywhere like it is here in the Midwest.) The problem is, creeping bellflower has a very strong and extensive root system so it spreads quickly and will easily take over your garden and choke out other plants.

It’s also hard to get rid of. I’m not a big fan of chemicals, and they don’t work very well on bellflower anyway, so I’m going to explain two non-chemical ways to kill this miserable plant. Basically, you can dig it out or smother it. I often do some of both. No matter which way you go, it will take years to eradicate this flower-weed creature. Or, like me, you may just get to the point where it’s at least tamed enough that you can cope with ripping out a few of them each year.

Well, here we are in the middle of January and what is normally an unspeakably cold month is worse this week due to what meteorologists are calling a “distorted polar vortex,” which has allowed Arctic air to spill all the way down to Florida. With air temperatures around -20°F plus wind chill making it feel like -50°F yesterday, I’ve had a few people email to ask whether our perennials here in Minnesota will survive.

Fern frost on the window in our bathroom.

I’ll give the answer I often give for any garden-related question: It depends. It helps that we have snow cover to keep soil temperatures from fluctuating a lot. And perennials rated for our Zone 4 climate should be okay down to an air temperature of -30°F (wind chill doesn’t matter). But if you put things in the ground late, as I did last year, they may not make it since they didn’t have much time to establish a decent root system. And if you didn’t water much, plants may be too drought stressed to survive.

It’s also hard to say how newer introductions will do. With so many new plants being rushed to market each year, plant trials aren’t as rigorous as they used to be. It’s possible that some of the perennials we’ve tried lately won’t be able to hack the extreme cold. And with that in mind, here is a short review of some of the new introductions I’ve tried in my gardens in the last few years. Of course, this is just my experience. Perhaps other gardeners are growing things that I’ve killed just fine. (If that’s you, please email and tell me your secrets.) And one other thing to note—I test plants in my garden for Proven Winners so there are a lot of plants from them on this list.

Oso Happy Smoothie RoseCourtesy of Proven Winners

Rosa Oso Happy Smoothie‘Zlesak Poly3’ PPAF

I can’t say enough great things about this rose. Bred by David Zlesak, a hort professor at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls, Oso Happy Smoothie has been in one of my backyard gardens for a couple of seasons now. As promised, it is a little over 3 feet tall, it was covered with dainty pink blooms all summer, has great form, no thorns and recovered nicely from being chomped on by rabbits last winter.

‘Midnight Marve’ HibiscusCourtesy of Walters Gardens

Hibiscus ‘Midnight Marvel’

My friend, Kathleen, bought this new hibiscus from Walters Gardens for each of us this summer and, so far, it has performed beautifully in both of our gardens—hers more than mine, though. ‘Midnight Marvel‘ didn’t yet reach its purported 48 inches tall, but it may next season, and the burgundy foliage topped with red blooms make the plant absolutely stunning.

Grafted tomatoes, especially heirlooms, were really hot this year. Why graft heirlooms? Well, the reasoning is that by grafting the heirlooms we love—Brandywines, Green Zebras, Cherokee Purples, Mortgage Lifters—to a rootstock that’s got, say, great drought tolerance or disease resistance, you get what amounts to a super heirloom.

Tomato grafting in progress.Credit: Washington State University

The strategy isn’t new. Apple and grape varieties have been produced successfully on desirable rootstock for ages. But this is the first time that home gardeners in the U.S. are really starting to see grafted vegetables, including eggplants, peppers, cucumbers and watermelon, becoming increasingly available at the retail level. Territorial Seed Company, Johnny’s Selected Seeds and White Flower Farm are just a few of the places where you’ll find grafted vegetables.

Though I admit that there can be problems with heirlooms tomatoes, I go out of my way to plant them. So I like the idea of making them more viable and widely available. Like a lot of gardeners, I feel strongly about the importance of including heirlooms of all types in the garden and, on the whole, I think heirloom tomatoes taste better than their hybrid peers, which often have tough skins and bland flavor. (Some of my favorite heirlooms are Black Krim, Green Zebra, Stupice and Sweet Million, though I always, always, always plant Sungolds, those out-of-this-world hybrid, yellow cherry tomatoes.)

Indigo Rose tomatoes were gorgeous, but didn’t taste like much.

More Indigo Rose porn.

Still, I’m always up for trying something new. So I was happy to get a surprise box of grafted tomato seedling samples (some heirlooms, some not) from Mighty ‘Mato early in the season. Having a limited amount of sun to work with, I kept two for myself, an Indigo Rose and a Brandywine, and gave the others to master gardener friends to plant and report back on. During the season, I also talked with more MGs and garden writers who were experimenting with grafted tomatoes. The outcome? Impressions were mixed.

Take Indigo Rose, for example. I had been wanting to try Indigo Rose, which was introduced by Oregon State University in 2012. Their goal was to produce a tomato with high levels of antioxidants. I wanted to grow the tomato because I fell for the weird looking purple-black fruit. I planted both grafted and ungrafted Indigo Rose tomatoes so I could compare the two (and so I could justify planting way too many tomatoes, like I always do).

Sadly, though they both produced an absurd amount of fruit all summer long, I didn’t like either of them, mainly because the tomatoes took FOREVER to ripen and when they finally did, they tasted bland and watery. Also of note was the fact that I honestly noticed no difference between the grafted plants and the ungrafted plants. Most of the gardeners I’ve talked to had similar experiences with Indigo Rose, though I will say that a few thought they were tastier than I did.

Grafted Indigo Ruby tomatoes got rave reviews from gardeners.

On the plus side, my friend, Deb, loved Mighty ‘Mato’s grafted Indigo Ruby, a cross between Indigo Rose and a cherry tomato. The plant grew well, was free of disease and produced very tasty tomatoes all season. I heard rave reviews from other gardeners, too, though I don’t know how they compared to ungrafted Indigo Ruby.

As for grafted Brandywine tomatoes, by all accounts, including mine, the grafted plants didn’t do as well as the heirlooms usually do on their own. I did hear lots of good things about grafted Legend tomatoes—great taste, good disease resistance and a LOT of tomatoes.

What does all of this mean? Well, at this point, I’m not ready to say that grafted tomatoes aren’t worth the price, which is steep compared to regular tomatoes, hybrids and heirlooms. But I’m not ready to sing their praises either. I’ll plant a couple more varieties next summer and report back on how things go. If you try grafted tomatoes, please let me know about your experiences. I’ll pass that information on so we can all compare notes.

As a garden writer, I read a lot of gardening blogs and articles by other writers and landscape designers and I have to say, I’m finding them increasingly annoying and depressing. So much judgment and negativity—who died and made us the arbiters of all things right and tasteful?

When I’ve finished sipping tea from my golden cup, I shall tell you all what to plant in your gardens.

Without naming the writer and being a jerk when I’m trying to write about why it’s important to not be a jerk, let me just say that recently I read a blog post that pushed me over the edge. It was a short piece, posted by a writer who had a day off so she rented a bike in a nearby town and peddled around looking at gardens.

It was a beautiful blue-sky day, but she really couldn’t enjoy it because most of the homes she biked past were landscaped with predictable perennials, particularly KnockOut® roses and catmint (Nepeta). The fact that most of the roses were RED only accentuated the humdrum nature of the plants in her mind, and she posted a few pictures to bolster her point with “sophisticated” readers like us. Ugh. How can this sort of thing be helpful to anyone?

What’s so bad about KnockOut roses, anyway?

Sure, experienced gardeners or those with the good fortune to have an impermeable force field of self-esteem might read snobby comments like that and think: “To hell with her, I love my KnockOut roses.” But for many mortals trying to garden, it’s no fun to read something written by someone who is supposedly in the know that basically says you have bad taste if you plant certain things (or allow them to be planted by a landscaper) and you ought to know better. This kind of senseless garden bullying isn’t helpful or inspiring and needs to stop.

A Matter of Taste

I will confess right now that I am guilty of garden snobbery. I have written disparaging things about annual geraniums, dusty miller and other plants I don’t like. Thinking about it now, I can’t imagine how I ever thought that might be useful to anyone. Please accept my sincere apology for behaving like such a self-important turd.

But don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that garden writers should only write nice things about plants. On the contrary, plants that perform poorly are absolutely fair game. It’s our job to spill the beans on crappy plants that don’t bloom well, fail to be as hardy as advertised or are riddled with diseases they’re supposed to be able to resist. And there’s nothing wrong with pointing out that certain plants are being used an awful lot and suggesting alternatives. That’s information that people can use. But slamming plants based on personal preference, or nattering on about how sophisticated gardeners would never have this or that “over-planted” plant in their gardens, is on par with shaming high school classmates over their choice of jeans.

I like our crowded gardens, but not this weird lens filter that makes the world look as if we’ve smeared Vaseline on everything. Gross.

Let’s face it. Whether you’re a professional or a novice, when it comes right down to it, plant picks and gardening styles are always about personal taste. Like most gardeners, I plant what I like, and what is given to me and what I find by the side of the road with a “Free” sign on it. I know and respect many local landscape designers, and I do follow some of their advice, but I don’t want to hire one of them to reimagine my yard for me. Then, I would be living with their taste, not mine. I like the crowded, overgrown gardens I have imagined for myself and I ignore the finger-waggers who question my taste level. You should too.

A slightly different version of this post appeared recently in Northern Gardener magazine.

As you might have already guessed from the infrequency of my posts lately, the hardest thing about being a garden blogger is actually sitting down to write something in the summer. Winter is no problem. If you’re not into winter sports (and I am most definitely not) there’s nothing else to do here in Minnesota when it’s crazy-ass cold. But during our reasonably nice five months of each year, it’s hard not to spend every extra moment outdoors. Lately, I’ve been going to every garden tour I can find, large and small, and I’ve seen some beautiful, odd, innovative, lovingly tended and over-the-top landscapes. So I thought I’d share some photos. Here goes:

This year’s Tangletown Garden Tour, hosted by local Tangletown Gardens, included a stop at co-owner Scott Endres’ house, which showcased his design sensibilities and penchant for using unusual and colorful plants in fun and elegant ways.

The front porch—

And now the backyard—

Okay, so this wasn’t on any tour. But my friend Kathleen and I saw it on the way to the tour, so here it is. Wow!

A few pretty plant combos.

Photos just can’t do justice to a garden we saw in Highland Park. The couple has been gardening on four city lots for more than 40 years and their gardens are clearly tended with loving care. Vegetables, perennials, a formal area with boxwood hedges and a gorgeous wisteria archway—it was breathtaking.

Hi. My name is Meleah Maynard and I garden in crazy-ass cold, zone 4 Minneapolis, Minnesota. My first book, co-authored with Jeff Gillman, Decoding Gardening Advice: The Science Behind the 100 Most Common Recommendations, was recently published by Timber Press. Click here to email Meleah.